Blogger dalam Bahasa Melayu
Google noticed us. Cool!
I changed my blog's language to BM just to see what all the words are. "Pratonton" for "preview" seems awfully weird. The problem is, since no BM blogging engines were available before, Malaysians just did what they always do and transliterated - e.g. "komen" for "comment. Actually "komen" was around for a lot longer, especially "Tiada komen" from the lips of public figures heh.
The word "draf" still frightens me. It brings back bad memories of being eleven and trying to finish a Malay composition in tears after the exam officially ended, a sympathetic teacher having given me an unofficial extension.
Er...dude..."Moderate comments" is definitely not "sederhanakan ulasan". It looks as if a lot of this was done by machine translation, or by someone who learned BM long after childhood - i.e. not anyone who went to a national school in Malaysia. My BM is not great by any means (got a B in the SPM, and that was eight years ago), but I think I still could make it sound more natural.
Please don't take this as me bashing Google/Blogger. I think it's excellent that they've responded to the numbers and power of Malaysian bloggers. However, as with any new effort, version 1.0 has plenty of bugs, and I hope they'll be open to users' suggestions.
By the way, even though Malay is the national language, I still think it makes more sense to call it "Bahasa Melayu" rather than "Bahasa Malaysia" because it still has historical and cultural roots with a particular group (albeit a fuzzy set) of people. English is the national language of the USA, but you don't here them calling it "Americanese".
And now, I'm going to "terbitkan catatan", "rakam keluar" (would have NO idea what that was if it wasn't in the top right corner) and go to bed.
Labels: Malaysia
posted by xenobiologista @ 00:09
10 Comments:
hye. :) thanks for the enlightening comment.
Hi, I saw your post on Amazon from a few years back in regards to a Barbapapa pillow by Mogu. I've been desperately searching to purchase one online, and I can't seem to find one. Any help you could provide me would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!
I actually bought mine from Macy's (macys.com) but unfortunately they seem to be out of stock too now. Sad.
Amazon does have a lot of other styles of Mogu cushions. http://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&search-alias=garden&field-brandtextbin=Mogu%20America
Good luck, sorry I can't help you.
"Rakam keluar"? That makes no sense! I'd rather rakam kelawar. Actually, I guess they already did. I'm watching it tomorrow. :P
I had an experience in merakam kelawar once. Went to the Philippines with a prof whose field of research was bat ecology.
Man...still haven't seen Batman! I think the Potatoboy and I are going to see it this weekend. Hoping the matinee times will be cheaper.
Oh, and did you ever see the Keluang Man cartoon? I'm not kidding. Somebody actually tried to make a local knockoff of Batman. At least it was intentionally funny.
i think instead of rakan keluar, it should be log keluar. that's what i normally use when doing translation for tech-related matters. log masuk, log keluar.
Actually, to be a REALLY accurate translation, it should be balak keluar, balak masuk.
"Log" as in "record" originally is from the same "log" that refers to timber. Sailors used to throw a hunk of wood overboard with a rope tied to it. The rope had knots tied in it at intervals of equal distance. The wood would remain more or less stationary on the surface while the ship moved away, and after a set period of time, they would count how many "knots" had run out, and thereby "log" their speed.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/05/15/google_translation/
if you wanted to know a bit about how google does its translations
Yeah I remember Keluang Man - had it as my msn nick. I didn't know about that etymology of 'log'. Very cool.
The google thing sounds a bit like Latent Semantic Analysis. LSA is a cool principle, but it really kind of sucks. In a lot of cases, anyway. I shudder to think of how they may implement it to grade SAT essays.
Post a Comment
<< Home